Wednesday, March 06, 2013

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement revealed Tuesday that two employees of a company hired by the Republican Party of Florida to register voters admitted they committed fraud during the 2012 election season.

The two former employees of Strategic Allied Consulting are facing third degree felony charges after admitting that they submitted dozens of forged voter registration applications last fall ahead of the 2012 election.

The employees, Rebekah Joy Paul and Christian Davis Price, told investigators they forged forms in order to meet the required number of applications and receive payment. Paul also said that her bosses at Strategic Allied instructed her to not register Democrats, although a lawyer for the company denies that allegation.

Paul’s story is similar to a complaint filed in Nevada last fall by a woman who claimed she wastold to tear up her registration form by a SAC employee when he realized she had registered as a Democrat.

Strategic Allied Consulting was dismissed by the Republican National Committee and many state GOP parties after elections officials received complaints of shady registration practices and discovered irregularities on registration documents.

The company is run by Nathan Sproul, a Republican who has worked on Republican get out the vote and registration campaigns for years through his various companies. Those companies have faced voter fraud accusations dating back to 2004.

Just last year, Virginia officials charged Colin Small, a former employee of Strategic Allied Consulting who continued working directly for the Republican party of Virginia after the state party severed ties with SAC, with eight felonies and five misdemeanors associated with destroying voter registration forms.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has not finished its inquiry into the firm, and four more cases are still pending investigation.

FDLE also announced two additional voter fraud cases would be closed without charges, including accusations that a Democratic party employee registered a non-citizen to vote. Resident Jorge Cala complained to election officials when he received a voter registration card in the mail, claiming he never understood what he was signing and that a Democratic official had pressured him to register. The investigation ended when that man was unable to pick out the Democratic Party employees from a photo lineup.